Do We Need a National ID Card?
Friday, April 23rd, 2010
The idea of a national ID card for American citizens and legal immigrants sends shivers down the spines of some Americans. Cries of “1984″, “Tyranny”, and “Invasion of Privacy” fly from the vocal cords of teabaggers and neocons. Yet those same people want to deport all immigrants who are here illegally. The question is, How the heck is it possible to identify illegal immigrants without requiring documentation for those here legally?
Today’s events in Arizona bring this issue to the forefront. The governor of that state signed a bill giving police the power, and in come cases mandatory orders, to check the immigration status of people involved in crimes and other incidents who appear to be illegal immigrants.
I’m not going to remark here on my feeling about this law. I’ll address that elsewhere. Right now, we’re talking about ID cards.
For the life of me, I can’t see how any of the arguments against a national ID card are valid. Your citizenship is not a matter of privacy. Many countries require everyone to carry their passport at all times as a means of identification. I suppose we could do that, but it’s not necessary. Every US State requires that adults carry either a drivers license or state-issued picture ID. If there’s no privacy issue with that, how is a national ID card an invasion of privacy? Actually, we could just add an endorsement or seal to the card we are already required to carry that reflects our citizenship status. States share their databases, so we pretty much have the framework in place to implement this reasonably easily.
All Americans are also required to have a Social Security number. So there is already a national database there as well. So privacy is not a real issue.
Tyranny? This claim comes up frequently, but I’ve never been able to get anyone to tell me what’s tyrannical about laws passed according to our constitutional system. Most of the people who use the word can’t even spell it. The “1984″ claim is similar. How our government might use the card to somehow monitor your thoughts or actions escapes me.
Considering the way these dolts wrap themselves in the flag, you’d think they’d be proud to be “Card-Carrying Americans”. Then again, expecting rational thought from this group is asking quite a lot.
If figures that violation of right to privacy is one of the big objections, but you are quite correct in saying citizenship is not a matter of privacy, and what’s more, neither is your identity. Any police officer has the right to request that you identify yourself.
However, approaching an issue with a rational argument is rarely the strategy when a particular result, without regard to whether it makes sense, is the goal.